2025 Volume 46 Issue 2 Pages 65-73
Down syndrome （DS） often results in immature oral function, and mothers of DS children experience increased parental stress from the weaning period. We quantified and compared the anxiety of mothers of children with DS before and after the start and end of support using the STAI Form JYZ, with the aim of clarifying whether providing support for the development of feeding and swallowing function in children with DS reduces maternal anxiety.
The subjects were 33 mothers of children with DS who had completed support for the development of feeding and swallowing function at the pediatric dental clinic of Osaka Dental University Hospital, with the pre-support group as the positive control group and the post-support group as the intervention group. In addition, 32 mothers of typically developing children were examined as the negative control group, analyzed for state anxiety and trait anxiety, and statistically examined.
The results showed that there were no significant differences between the mothers of healthy children and the mothers of （pre-support） DS children on the total scale scores, but the （post-support） group of mothers of DS children had significantly lower scores on both state and trait anxiety. On the subscales, the （post-support） group of mothers of DS children scored significantly lower than the （pre-support） group on the anxiety-absent scale （A scale） for state anxiety and anxiety-present scale （P scale） for trait anxiety. Furthermore, when comparing the pre- and post-support scores of mothers of DS children classified by age at the child’s first visit, the 0-1 year group （15 mothers） had significantly lower post-support scores on the P scale for state and trait anxiety and the 2-year group （9 mothers） on the A scale for state anxiety, but there were no differences for children aged 3 and over.
These results suggest that initiating support for the development of feeding and swallowing function for DS children by the age of 2 years may reduce trait anxiety in mothers of DS children.
